Chatting to Coral Fourie in her studio in Parys, South Africa, where she explores the antiquital mysteries of time and space in her art
www.coralfourieartstudio.co.za
During my childhood, I lived in close contact with the Batswana, Bakgalagadi and the San of the Kalahari and I was fascinated by the peoples of Africa and the variety of cultures. People who survived the “wilderness” and the elements of the harsh African landscape in the fullest force through skills adapted to the conditions and only known to them. This puts the African in a different class but by no means in an inferior category of intrinsic values as the westerner.
In Africa, lived highly sophisticated and developed people who had kingdoms, trade routes, infrastructures and even a written language, the Ogam, of which we observe the remnants today. Who were these civilised people with beautiful architecture and structural strongholds which we may admire? The answers are to be found in and on the rocks which are scattered all over South Africa, but they remain riddles – the mysteries of Africa.
Many rock engravings, mainly animals, were done by the San, but there are as many of which we do not know the origin; the non-figurative, geometric symbols. Symbols of Earth Mother, Father Sun, fertility, water, strongholds, ladders, grids, and much more which were certainly not done by the San.
This non-figurative symbol language on the rocks was used as a vehicle of communication in ancient times. The inscriptions were picked out by scribes with specific messages, like letters of advice, left for specific groups, travellers, inhabitants, allies, nomads, or descendants to understand and benefit from.
Similarly, these symbols may be seen as an alphabet for communication in a contemporary context. Through my art, I may indulge in improvising and re-interpreting the symbols putting them in a Western continuum: The mystery of man as part of history and history as part of man.
The concept of my art is to depict the mystery of the obscure past of Africa and has nothing to do with the scientific correct approach of archaeologists, ethnologists and socio-anthropologists. Therefore, look at my works as the opinion of an objective observer of the mysterious past of Africa.
In closing a quotation that most accurately sums up my work:
“Coral believes that non-figurative art portrays the artist’s soul and that when art exposes that which cannot be seen, it is not merely a copy or purely decorative. She feels that this reveals an emotional state, a story, a meaning and that not all pictures are art because not all pictures bear witness to the soul.” E.H. du Plessis in an article for Nouveau Magazine.
